Feeling Like Dumbo

A friend on Facebook asked, “Tell me one thing you love about you.” The following is what I wrote back (and I still can’t believe I posted it in public, but that’s me):

I love having moments of blinding, beyond-my-years-and-station insight, and simultaneously being unable to articulate them as a writer. I’ve been doing it since I was three. It terrified me as a child, enraged me as a teen, made me cocky in my 20s, and emotionally handed me my a$$ in my 30s and 40s, as the promise of my growth as a writer never really caught up to my talent, and now infirmity threatens even that. Nearing 50, I can look at that history of absurdity and begin to laugh about it and love it.

I can look at myself in the mirror now and think, “Oh, bless your heart.” 🤣

I feel kinda like a real-life Dumbo, an elephant with ears so big she can’t walk, but obviously in real life can’t fly, either. So I just stumble around all day and that’s okay because even stumbling elephants are loveable and worthy.

My talent is still a burden to me, but age has finally given me shoulders broad enough to carry both it and its failures.